It was May 5, 2002; a hot summer’s day, but at the Panjim Gymkhana club in Campal there were hundreds of people who didn’t really care. They were there for one reason and one reason only; to see one of the biggest rock bands in the world, live on stage. This was the day that Deep Purple would shake Goa up, where Ian Gillan and company belted out their hits which flowed as smooth as the Mandovi river nearby. From Smoke on the Water to Highway Star with blistering solos by Steve Morse and machine gun drum rolls by Ian Paice, Deep Purple made a lot of people happy that day. And Cassandra Sequeira, a teacher from Porvorim was one of them. “I was standing right behind the VIP area. The purple lighting was brilliant and the stage was big and high. Everybody was head banging and playing the air guitar. It was my first experience watching an international band live and May 5 will always be etched in my mind forever."
Fourteen years later and after selling more than a 100 million albums worldwide the hard rock trailblazers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Vicky Lord (wife of late founding member organ player Jon Lord) walked on stage at the Barclay’s Center, New York City on the April 8 and received a thunderous applause from thousands of fans which would have been accented had Ritchie Blackmore been there.
Cassandra was accompanying her husband Clifford Sequeira, the drummer for Tidal Wave that opened for the mighty Deep Purple that night. "Back in those days there was a late night rock show that was broadcasted on All India Radio called 'On the Rocks' and there was Headbanger’s Ball on VH1. You also had a lot of foreigners who bought hard rock into Goa and a lot more bands covering Smoke on the Water back in the day. There is obviously Smoke on the Water and Highway star which are the signature songs of the band, but from a drummer’s point of view one song which caught my attention early on was Speed King of the Deep Purple in Rock album,”says Clifford recollecting the good old days of classic rock.
Deep Purple has always been a popular band in Goa and India, with cassettes and CDs being found in a large majority of the music stores. Ranjit Pais who is a veteran hair designer based in Porvorim was a fan from the 70s, when he lived in Mumbai. Says Ranjit, "Back in the day before the internet, there were a lot of foreigners who sold their cassettes in the flea markets. There were times when we did not know what to buy and sometimes lacked the money to buy multiple albums so we bought compilation albums which were a huge part of the small underground music scene. Almost each and every single compilation album had Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and that was the song that stuck out...at least for me”.
Smoke on the Water spread its sonic wings far and wide and became one of the most popular hard rock songs in the world. Glen Colaco who is a digital marketing consultant from Porvorim fondly reminisces about the evening when he saw Deep Purple play the hard rock anthem. "The venue was packed and the atmosphere was nothing short of electrifying. When Steve Morse played the riff to Smoke on the water, people started screaming at the top of their lungs. When the band went off stage we just stood there and refused to move until the band came out for an encore."
The concert was a frequent topic at dinner tables for a long time and the tourists that came to Goa post the gig were flabbergasted that a band of such titanic significance had performed in the state. Nixon Soares from Navelim who is the lead guitarist of veteran Goan rockers Bad Blood feels that Goa was treated with a strange reverence post May 5, 2002. “The fact that Deep Purple played in Goa adds to its charm and tourists look at Goa with a new-found respect and a changed mindset.” mentions Nixon
In the late 80s, Goa saw a transition of interest from rock to trance which hit its peak with the advent of the new millennium. The state had suddenly become a worldwide hub for trance music and New Year Parties and in the midst of this boom, Deep Purple came down to India. This was a pleasant surprise for the rock ‘n’ roll fanatics in the state, but the venue was filled with fans of trance who failed to grasp the magnitude of the event that was taking place. Ranjit Pais categorically states that he wished he had seen them in the 80s. “The crowd was quite non-ecstatic about the fact that one of the founding fathers of hard rock was playing their greatest hits in front of them. The vibe would have been much better had the gig happened in the 80s.”
Deep Purple is revered as one of the founding fathers of hard rock and inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame is more of a feather in the Hall’s cap rather than in the band’s and as long as rock is alive in Goa there will always be a fan base for the band. The realization that Deep Purple performed in Goa was an eldritch triumph for the rockers of the state and the belief that rock was alive was further strengthened at a time when other genres had supplanted it in the minds of the citizens. The denizens of Goa wait anxiously for the band’s sophomore appearance in the state.
